Pork Knuckles in Sweet Vinegar

Not another Chinese confinement food haha, I can simply ate 2 full bowls of rice just with this dish, not that I praising how good I cooked, is because of the main ingredient (Vinegar) sour and sweet really makes you good appetite.

After eating so much of it, I started reading about benefits of the Black Vinegar and surprisingly it had some slimming and detoxifies benefits, which I need it >_< (still having flabby tummy after birth)

I read up some food blogs to get some ideas of how they prepare this dish, the main source is from christinesrecipes.com  and also some additional suggestion from my mum.

Ingredients :

• 1kg Pork Knuckles / Trotters (Cut them in BIG chucks)
• 1 big old ginger
• 1tbps cooking oil
• 1 bottle black vinegar 750ml
• Water 750ml to 1L
• 200gm rock sugar or palm sugar
• 4-5 eggs
• 1 stalk coriander for garnishing

 Preparing Sweet Vinegar 

1. Pour in black vinegar and water in a large casserole, bring it to boil.
2. Add in ginger. (please see below instructions first)
3. Add in rock or palm sugar (depending which one you use), stir in slow motion untill sugar dissolve and reduce heat to low, cover casserole and simmer for 15mins.
4. Remove from heat and set cool for half a day, this is to let the ginger absorbed the vinegar flavor.

 Preparing Ginger, eggs and Pork Knuckles Method :

1. Chop the ginger in pieces about 2inch in size, lightly pressed ginger and wash clean, set aside
2.  Rinse and clean the pork knuckles or trotters, blanch in boiling water for about 10mins then wash well with clean water and set aside.
3. Heat pan hot and fry ginger, do not add any oil on it, by doing this is to dries up ginger, once ginger is dried add a bit of oil and fry the ginger until aromatic. set aside. (this tactic was obtain from Christine Recipes) 
4. Prepare hard boil eggs in a pot, leave it to cool completely and shell them. 

After Half a day :

Once the cooked sweet vinegar is in room temperature, bring to boil again then add in pork knuckles or trotters, cook for 20mins then add in shell eggs. Let the eggs soak in the sweet vinegar for at least 30mins or until it turn dark brown.

Garnish with coriander and serve with steam rice!!

 

Ginger Wine Chicken

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My mum loves to eat confinement food and this is one of her favorite dish, finally she got me cooking it, I did a bit of research from some sites and also asked one of my friend how to cook it and this is my second attempt, daaadahhh........ the first ginger wine chicken fail because I added too little wine and it doesn't bring out the taste, so, this time around I add more, and really did turn out good :)

Let me share my recipe with you, the below portion serves 3 to 4 person.


Ingredients :

• Chicken breast or Chicken drumettes 500g
• Slice Ginger 100-150g (add more ginger if you like strong taste)
• Mushrooms 4-5pcs Sliced
• Garlic 3cloves Chopped
• 1 Stalk Spring Onion Chopped
• 3tbps Sesame Oil
• 1tbps Light Soya Sauce
• Pinch of salt
• 150ml Wine (Dom, Eu Yan Sang Ginger Wine, Chinese Cooking Wine) - I used Dom.
• 50ml Wine for Seasoning the chicken
• 200ml Water

Method :

1. Wash chicken thoroughly and drip dry in a sieve. 
2. Once chicken is roughly dry season it with Wine for 30mins
3. Heat wok with sesame oil, once oil is hot add in ginger and garlic and fry for 2mins or till it is fragrant.
4. Add in seasoned chicken and mushrooms and fry for 2mins, pour in the water then cover it with low heat for 5mins.
5. Then add wine, stir fry the chicken and continue to cover it for another 15mins in low heat.
6. Top with spring onion, served with white rice :)